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# The Children's Crusade

#### by Dion Scher

The copyright of this article remains with the original author. Articles may be copied or distributed freely for personal non-profit use, provided that the author is properly credited.

Preamble

This story is based on a historical event which took place in Marseille. Therefore the story is best played out near Marseille, where the characters will be affected. When we played, the characters' Covenant was situated a couple of miles outside of Marseille and therefore was highly affected by the events of this story.

Format

Because the story is location specific, I will try to elucidate further by explaining what happened in our saga. Hopefully, this will give Guides enough of a picture to run it in their own sagas.

- The text in Normal font is the written adventure.
- The text in Italic is my comments on the scene and my groups experiences.

Actual History

(This may be also found in the Mythic Europe Sourcebook)

There was a French Shepherd boy by the name of Stephen. In 1212 A.D., he had a vision that Jesus was calling him. He leads 20000 children to Marseille where he promises God will part the sea, allowing them to walk to Jerusalem.

The sea refuses to part for Stephen but some merchants offer them free passage to Jerusalem instead. However, the merchants change their course to Africa, where they sell the children as slaves to the Muslims.

Marseille gets a shocking reputation and is condemned by the Pope for their unspeakable acts. Marseille becomes a cesspool of scum and theives.

### The Children’s Crusade (1212AD)

- EVENT 1: Food disappears from forest because large numbers of children are congregating there.

  Current Crusade Divine Aura = 1.

  Stephen is recruiting for his crusade and has not arrived in the forest yet. He decided that the forest outside the players Covenant would make an ideal meeting place - being so close to Marseille. This is when the crusade starts to conglomerate. The children are waiting for Stephen's arrival.

  The players will notice that the quality and variety of food which they are receiving at meals is declining.

  The hunters will most probably be called by the players. When spoken to, they report that there are no animals in the forest. There does however appear to be many children wandering around.

  The PC’s can find and speak to the children.

  (Sample Names - Wrat, Kelly, Katarien, Jark)

  What do they know?

  - Children can tell about Stephen.
  - Can tell about Crusade and Stephen's intention.
  - Can tell about numbers of 10,000. (Haven't peaked yet)
  - Anything else related?

  This is the opening scene. This is the sign of things to come. In our saga the players had a massive forest about 100 yards outside of the covenant gate. The first signs of the congregation of the crusade is that food is more and more scarce - the cooks are unable to find decent game in the forest.

  In our game, the congregation of children had a dramatic effect:

  The forest was a fay forest and the divine aura disturbed the fay. It's not nice to live near irritable fay.

  The game in the forest was hunted out. The hunters brought nothing home. So the players were living on turnips - turnip soup, turnip surprise, turnips boiled, etc...

  This scene is not supposed to alert the players, just hint at unnerving them.

- EVENT 2: Stephen preaching in the region and telling children to go to the forest.

  [True Faith for Stephen = 1]

  [Divine Aura for Scene = 2]

  [Head count of children =15000]

  The Divine Aura irritates the Fay and they retaliate. They retaliate by creating exploding rats. It is their thinking that the children will hunt the rats and thus this form of attack will be effective.

  This materializes for the PC’s in the form of:

  - Explosions from the forest
  - Faeries moving into covenant to escape divine aura
  - Rats intruding into covenant and THEN exploding

  If Magi enter the forest and search, they will find the children. - see EVENT 1.

  If Magi wish to speak with Faeries:

  - They will find a fairy by the name of Beetel. Beetel looks like a small impish humanoid with a trunk down to the floor and blue skin. He has no control over the trunk and it often gets in the way.

  Beetel can tell the PC’s about the Divine Aura and the Faerie King's (King Auron the Magnificent) decision to take action. The faerie court is in a state of emergency and does not appreciate this `attack'.

- The Faerie King will not speak directly with the PC’s but will speak via Beetel.

What can the Magi do about it?

- They can find Stephen and hurry up his quest.
- Get the children out of the forest.
- What else?

If the Magi do nothing?

The situation with the rats and faeries gets worse and worse. (I'll leave this up to your imagination.)

This scene is rather self-explanatory. It is your action scene 101. The rats explode, characters get upset etc. It is meant to stress the urgency of resolving the situation.

In our game, a Grog died from attacking and killing a rat - the rats explode on death or on being hurt.

- EVENT 3: When Stephen arrives.

  [Crusade Divine Aura = 3]

  [Children headcount = 20000]

  In this scene, Stephen arrives. Stephen promises major miracles. He does have divine faith but that is mainly as a protective measure against magic.

  Stephen Quote:

  "The sea will part before God's children and we shall march our way to the walls of Jerusalem with Piety as our shield and Faith as our blade!!!"

  The children gets scared of the exploding rats. However there are now about 20000 children waiting in the forest for Stephen to arrive. They are very restless. The divine aura is at a high.

  Stephen then arrives and calms the masses. He builds their emotion until roars of excitement can be heard. He then leads them onward to Marseille.

  Why should Magi follow Stephen to Marseille?

- Juan Phillip's son joins the Crusade and he begs them to talk some sense into him. One of the hunters or grogs' sons follows the crusade and they plead with the Magi to rescue him.
- Stephen insists that they escort him and his followers in return for their immediate departure.
- Favor for the land Baron - Baron Dusceville.
- Interest in Stephen's promised miracle.
- Favor to Faeries.
- Stephen pays them - marginal amount.

In our saga, the players took a hike into the forest to find the cause of the faeries' problem. They saw clumps of scared children (because of rats) here and there. They couldn't actually see all the children as the forest is thick.

One bright spark decided that he'd shout that there was a Covenant in the south and that they were offering protection. Next thing, wave after wave of children start to pass them, heading south. There are way more than a few hundred - which is all that they've seen so far. Words has travlled fast and all the children are making their way to the Covenant.

One of the Magi flies up into the air to check out the scene from above. He basically sees a rock concert type gathering in the Covenant main square.

When they get back Stephen has arrived, preaching like his life depended on it. It truly looks like a rock concert.

My player then `helped' the Crusade to leave - their Magic aura started to go down due to the Divine aura.

The hunter then noticed his son had joined the Crusade and pleaded with one of the kind hearted Magi to rescue him - Mwhahahah! They agreed to help! Mwahahahah!

- EVENT 4: Crusade arrives in Marseille.

Now is the time for the GM to make a decision. Will he let Stephen part the sea and defy history or keep his saga consistent with history? I chose the latter and therefore the sea doesn't part for Stephen and he stands there dumb-struck, with 20000 children behind him for hours. Mumbling softly to himself.

My players actually attacked Stephen - as a diversion. They turned invisible and swam underwater. They then dragged him under and attacked him. He managed to get away with a few bumps on his head. While this was happening, they grabbed the hunter's son and left.

- EVENT 5: Merchants oddly offer free passage.

  This is the closer. You can pretty much run it ad hoc here. My players heard the merchant's speech and couldn't be bothered to actually take the matter further. They had what they came for and therefore left.

  A merchant by the name of Pelonius approaches Stephen and offers free passage:

  "For such a noble cause, the Merchants of Marseille have found it in their hearts to transport God's children to their destination."

  The merchants are NOT doing this because of the goodness in their hearts, but because they were paid to by the (rival) Autumn Covenant Locus de Umbrae. If pressured by Magi Pelonius will give up the information of his sponsor.

  [Why? They want to learn magic from the Lords of Dis (demonic magic). Magi only find out that the children were sold to the Moors - see South of the Sun.]

  How do Magi find out about real fate of the children?

- Letter from King and Pope from Redcap Tribulous.

As a GM you can take it from here to adapt to your own campaign. I use Pelonius as a great mundane enemy - he's still waiting in the wings...

- CHARACTERS

1. Stephen

   Stephen is a blond-haired, blue-eyed shepherd's boy with a lot of charisma and a sprinkling of divine intervention. Stephen is about 16 years of age and stands 6 ft tall. He is slim of build with wiry muscles.

   He believes he has received a vision and is leading the Children on a crusade to rescue the Holy Sepulchre.

   Strengths:

2. Strong speaker
3. Strong leader
4. Charming

Weaknesses:

5. Arrogant
6. Obsessed

Characteristics:

Int | 2 (Cunning)
Per | 1 (Perceptive)
Str | 1 (Wiry)
Sta | 0
Pre | 4 (Crowds)
Com | 5 (Inciting Crowds)
Dex | 0
Qui | 0

Skills:

- Charisma 5
- Oratory 5
- Leadership 3
- Alertness 2
- Knife 1

7. Pelonius

   He is a local merchant of Marseille with a particularly untrustworthy and slimy nature.

   Pelonius is about 5'8" with dark brown hair and a full beard and mustache. He has dark brown eyes which dart about in every direction and a hooked nose. His face sometimes takes on the appearance of a rat. He stands hunched.

   Make the players HATE him but have no reason (yet) to take action.

   Characteristics:

   Int | 2 (Cunning)
   Per | 2 (Perceptive)
   Str | -2 (Wimpy)
   Sta | -3 (Unfit)
   Pre | 1 (Barter)
   Com | 3 (Bargain)
   Dex | 0
   Qui | -2 (Slow)

   Skills:

   - Bargain 5
   - Guile 2
   - Subterfuge 2
   - Alertness 1
   - Appraise 4

   Strengths:

8. Cunning
9. Intelligent
10. Good business sense

Weaknesses:

11. Untrustworthy
12. Sneaky

Other:

Ring of the Infantile Will

- Pelonius once made a good trade where he acquired a magical ring. It functions once a week and allows a statement made by the user to be believed by the target with absolute naivete. The target effectively gains the comprehension and analytical abilities of a child. The effect lasts only for that statement. For resistance, use Trust of Childlike Faith PeMe lvl 10.

- PLAYER AIDS (for the end)

These were delivered to the entire region.

- Letter from the Emperor

  I Emperor Frederick II do hereby condemn the aberrant actions taken by the merchants of Marseille.

  I do hereby command their immediate death for their barbarous deeds. To still have such deviant behavior in this civilized time, in my kingdom, is utterly unacceptable.

  Furthermore, the fact that other merchants of Marseille did naught to interfere, I find despicable and fine the city of Marseille 5000 livre.

  May the city of Marseille get what it deserves and may I never hear of a similar incident again.

- Letter from the Pope

  I Pope Benedict VIII hereby excommunicate the merchants involved in incident which has become known as the Children's Crusade. It was a noble quest on behalf of the children and the fact that such advantage was taken of such innocents makes me shudder. To what depths of hell has Marseille sunk?

  I hereby damn the guilty parties to hell and may God have mercy on your souls.